The technology relates to a vehicle seat control apparatus. In particular, the technology relates to a vehicle seat control apparatus that moves a seat automatically when making a transition from a manual driving state to an automatic driving state.
In general, a driver adjusts a position and a reclining angle of a seat in accordance with his/her build before starting to drive, especially when a vehicle is shared by multiple people. This is due to the position and an attitude of the seat upon driving the vehicle which vary depending on a factor such as the build of the driver. To save effort of adjusting the position and the reclining angle, a vehicle having a seat memory function has been developed. The seat memory function stores a position and an attitude of a seat corresponding to those of a driving position that is determined by the driver. For example, reference is made to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication (JP-A) No. H05-262173.
JP-A No. 2015-178332 discloses an automatic drive assist apparatus that allows for automatic driving without the aid of a driver's operation. The automatic drive assist apparatus includes a vehicle controlling ECU (Electronic Control Unit) that controls all of an accelerator operation, a brake operation, and a steering operation which serve as operations related to a behavior of a vehicle. The automatic drive assist apparatus controls and drives devices including an engine, a brake, and an electric power steering to perform the automatic driving until the necessity arises on a guide course that the automatic driving is to be halted.
Further, a technique is known that sets a seat to a relax mode upon the automatic driving for the purpose of, for example, reducing driver's fatigue. Reference is made to the Internet website “http://www.volvocars.com/jp/about/ourcompany/pressrelease/2015/20151119” searched on Jan. 5, 2016. Specifically, the seat is moved rearward and a seat back is reclined when the vehicle is placed in an automatic driving state. This configuration allows the driver to be kept away from a steering wheel, making it possible to reduce the driver's fatigue while preventing an operation including a steering operation performed by the automatic driving from being interrupted by the driver.